“I’m certain they think you’re no better than you should be,” he told her, laughing.

“It’s the dream of my life to be taken for an abandoned hussy,” she answered.

One day when Miss Wilkinson was in her room he asked Aunt Louisa how old she was.

“Oh, my dear, you should never ask a lady’s age; but she’s certainly too old for you to marry.”

The Vicar gave his slow, obese smile.

“She’s no chicken, Louisa,” he said.  “She was nearly grown up when we were in Lincolnshire, and that was twenty years ago.  She wore a pigtail hanging down her back.”

“She may not have been more than ten,” said Philip.

“She was older than that,” said Aunt Louisa.

“I think she was near twenty,” said the Vicar.

“Oh no, William.  Sixteen or seventeen at the outside.”

“That would make her well over thirty,” said Philip.

At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs, singing a song by Benjamin Goddard.  She had put her hat on, for she and Philip were going for a walk, and she held out her hand for him to button her glove.  He did it awkwardly.  He felt embarrassed but gallant.  Conversation went easily between them now, and as they strolled along they talked of all manner of things.  She told Philip about Berlin, and he told her of his year in Heidelberg.  As he spoke, things which had appeared of no importance gained a new interest:  he described the people at Frau Erlin’s house; and to the conversations between Hayward and Weeks, which at the time seemed so significant, he gave a little twist, so that they looked absurd.  He was flattered at Miss Wilkinson’s laughter.

“I’m quite frightened of you,” she said.  “You’re so sarcastic.”

Then she asked him playfully whether he had not had any love affairs at Heidelberg.  Without thinking, he frankly answered that he had not; but she refused to believe him.

“How secretive you are!” she said.  “At your age is it likely?”

He blushed and laughed.

“You want to know too much,” he said.

“Ah, I thought so,” she laughed triumphantly.  “Look at him blushing.”

He was pleased that she should think he had been a sad dog, and he changed the conversation so as to make her believe he had all sorts of romantic things to conceal.  He was angry with himself that he had not.  There had been no opportunity.

Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot.  She resented having to earn her living and told Philip a long story of an uncle of her mother’s, who had been expected to leave her a fortune but had married his cook and changed his will.  She hinted at the luxury of her home and compared her life in Lincolnshire, with horses to ride and carriages to drive in, with the mean dependence of her present state.  Philip was a little puzzled when he mentioned this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that when she knew the Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than